The Mormon Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was founded
in 1830 by a man called Joseph Smith who claimed to be a prophet of God. Was
this man really a prophet of God? We will soon see that he wasn’t.

MORONI OR NEPHI?

The 1851 version of Mormon scripture The Pearl of Great
Price says that Nephi appeared to Smith. Later on it has been
changed to Moroni. Nephi told Smith that he was chosen to be a prophet and a
book was deposited that Smith must uncover containing the everlasting gospel.
Smith was told his name would be had for good and evil among all nations and his
mission would fulfil Bible prophecy. What difference does it make who the
messenger was? A lot. Nephi said the Holy Spirit got him to murder the brother
of Laban. Nephi made false prophecies. Nephi appearing casts doubt on Smith’s
authenticity. Would God send somebody to tell a man that his name would be
universally known and rouse either love or hate? That is what you might
say of a saviour figure but a prophet?

EYE-OPENERS FROM THE BOOK OF COMMANDMENTS

Smith published the Book of Commandments which recorded the revelations he and
others received while the Book of Mormon was coming forth and after. He was
dictating the Book of Mormon to a secretary at this stage as he translated. The
Book of Commandments was printed in 1833 and in 1835 it was expanded into
Doctrine and Covenants with many parts added to and many alterations made. The
excuse was that the 1833 book was incomplete which only the most stupid among us
would believe.

The Book of Commandments says the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and
power of God (page 1:5). Chapter 2 is about God’s reaction when the 116 pages,
which Martin Harris wrote for Smith as he dictated, of the Book of Mormon were
stolen thanks to Martin’s carelessness. In it God warned that nobody could
receive revelations from him if he disobeyed God and warned Smith that he will
become as an ordinary man and be no longer a prophet if he continued to disobey
like he had in not watching the pages carefully and giving them out to Harris:
“Thou shalt be delivered up and become as other men, and have no more gift”. God
took away the gift to translate for a season. In Chapter 4 we read that God said
that Smith “has a gift to translate the book, and I have commanded him that he
shall pretend to no other gift, for I will grant him no other gift”. This tells
us that Smith was not a prophet but only a dictator for what appeared on the
magic glasses and would never be anything else. The Book of Commandments only
gives guidance from God for Smith alone and was not scripture or on the same
level as it. It is the same guidance God would give anybody. That is how you
reconcile the existence of the Book of Commandments with this statement.

God then complained that if nobody would believe in what Joseph was doing they
would not believe if he showed them all the wonders of Heaven. But Joseph was
only saying he was translating from a book at that stage and there was no
evidence that the golden book of the other half of the Bible, the Book of
Mormon, existed! There could be better miracles than that.

God promised to provide three witnesses so that they could testify that the Book
of Mormon was true by seeing the plates and knowing that the translation of them
by Joseph Smith was true and the result was the word of God. God said that
“three shall know of a surety that these things are true, for I will give them
power, that they may behold and view these things as they are, and to none else
will I grant this power, to receive this same testimony among this generation.
And the testimony of three witnesses will I send forth” (4:4; See also Doctrine
and Covenants 5:13-14). This was in the context of complaining that everybody
was stiff-necked in that generation. This then plainly suggests that there were
to be three witnesses only and since the audience they would have would be
stiff-necked it follows that they would have to be the most trustworthy men that
could possibly be found. They were not and even Smith condemned them later as
frauds and liars. Smith chose eight witnesses later on for he was unhappy with
the three. 1:7 says, “Search these commandments, for they are true and faithful,
and the prophecies and promises which are in them, shall all be fulfilled”.
Meaning yes! Not only does this tell us that the Book of Commandments was
complete – God would not say such a thing if it was incomplete for what use are
incomplete commandments? But it also proves that there were to be no more than
three and God would not change his mind. 2 Nephi 27 says that only three will be
chosen and then as an afterthought it is said a few more will be chosen to
testify to the truth taught by the Book of Mormon. But the eight witnesses only
saw plates and that did not put them in a position to say the translation was
right and the result was the word of God. The prophecy was false.

Chapter 6 gives a piece translated by Joseph and Oliver Cowdery from parchment
written by St John the Apostle. This parchment has conveniently not been left
with us.

Chapter 5 says that the schoolteacher Oliver Cowdery received the power to
translate like Joseph Smith and that he would translate ancient records. It does
not, however, say that he would translate the Book of Mormon. God says that two
or three witnesses are necessary to establish that the translations of hidden
scriptures are true. Cowdery or somebody would have to translate with Smith to
fulfil that. The prophecy says that Cowdery will translate with Smith if he is
obedient. Cowdery was praised for obedience at that time and when he was able to
get revelations. So Cowdery must have translated more than the parchment but
portions of the Book of Mormon as well. The power of Cowdery to translate was
confirmed (in 7:4). Chapter 8 has God telling Cowdery “because you did not
translate according to that which you desired of me, and did commence again to
write for my servant Joseph, even so I would that you should continue until you
have finished this record, which I have entrusted unto you: and then behold,
other records have I, that I will give unto you power that you may assist to
translate. It is not expedient that you translate at this present time” (8:1,2).
This informs us that he did not translate as he wished yet but was still just a
secretary for Joseph and must remain doing this until the Book of Mormon is
completed. This prophecy failed for Cowdery left the Mormon Church and did not
translate. The Mormons may say that it is conditional. But God said nothing
about conditions. Also Cowdery was faithful for years and had plenty of time to
get the records and translate them but didn’t. His resistance to the temptation
to do so must have been heroic!

Chapter 9 indicates that the Book of Mormon was finished for now the problem of
what to do about the missing portion, the manuscript with the Book of Lehi on
it, which was the start of the book came up. God directed Smith to use the small
plates of Nephi and not to use the plates he used to translate the missing
pages. God said that if he did re-translate the missing pages a forged version
would appear with alterations which would be used to convince the world that
Smith could not translate at all for the wording would not be the same though it
was the same plates supposedly being translated. God said that this was Satan’s
idea. God boasted that he would confound Satan in this thing. But it occurred to
nobody and not even God that if Smith used the small plates as directed that a
new manuscript of Lehi could still have been composed by a forger copying the
writing of Martin Harris or however – or even a few pages - that gave an account
that contradicted the plates of Nephi completely for it was held that both books
covered the same period except that Lehi was less spiritual. The forgers could
not issue the same pages with erased bits and new insertions squeezed in for
that would be too obvious. If anybody was going to create a new Lehi translating
from other plates was not going to make much of a difference. Smith was lying
and the episode proves beyond doubt that Smith was faking the miracle of the
translation and it stands as stronger evidence than any evidence for his miracle
being genuine for it is from his own mouth and undermines everything he claimed.

The Mormon Church admits that Smith added to the revelations after he gave them
and that this was not deception. They reason that the revelations of God come
across as vague and abstract and mysterious to man and man has to struggle to
express them. A prophet can have a revelation and put it down as best he can and
then later get more inspired insights or remember things that were lost in the
confusion and clarify and add to the writings. This is not right. Smith’s
revelations were not that difficult to grasp. He did not grapple with
incomprehensible problems like God being a spirit without parts or the three
persons of the Trinity being one God which would be harder to understand than
anything he wrote about and which did not stop the likes of St Thomas Aquinas
from writing about them clearly. And the Mormon God used to be an ordinary man
so he would have been down-to-earth for Joseph’s sake. There is just no law that
says that Joseph had to understand what he was told but he certainly had to
write it down as he was told and God would have boosted his memory for that
purpose. If prophets could write like Smith did then Deuteronomy 18 would have
no effect against false prophets. In Deuteronomy 18, God says that even the most
accurate of prophets must be rejected as a fraud if he reports the least thing
that God didn’t say or predicted something that didn’t come true for God knows
the future. The way Smith worked would have made it too easy for false prophets
to be taken for true ones, for they could say they blame God for not been clear
or themselves for being unintelligent and so could alter and correct and change
their prophecies after making them when they fail.

FULFILLED PROPHECY?

In recent years, the Church added Section 137 to the Doctrine and Covenants with
four false prophecies from Smith, one of which concerned Elder McLellin
preaching to a multitude in the south and curing a lame man, excised. So here we
have a case of the Church correcting a revelation and then saying it was
inspired by God!

Smith had to get some prophecies right and these are the ones the Mormons are
interested in. But he made a lot fewer impressive prophecies than the Church
would have you believe. Here is a study of Jeff Lindsay’s collection of Smithian
prophecies which he thinks we should be impressed by.

The Mormons say that Smith prophesied that the Saints would go to the Rocky
Mountains before it happened or could even be thought possible. There he foresaw
the saints becoming strong there and building many cities (History of the
Church, Vol 5. Ch 4, p 85). But the Church had much opportunity to add to the
writings of Smith while it was on the way to the Rockies. Many revelations
including the notorious revelation authorising polygamy surfaced long after
Smith and were under suspicion of having been altered or even composed under
Brigham Young and having nothing to do with Smith. This was one of the main
accusations against Mormonism made by the Reorganised Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints. The diary recording the prophecy was written from memory
after the Mormons went to Utah and in 1845 the manuscript of the History of the
Church contained the prophecy but this was after the Mormons set off for Utah.

The Church says that the Rocky Mountain Prophecy was written before the event.
But the manuscripts in question have the prophecy written in small handwriting
which is obviously showing that it is an interpolation inserted after the
Mormons went to the Rocky Mountains. Dean C Jessee of the Church Historical
Department declared that this was the case.

The Mormons incredibly regard section 87 of Doctrine and Covenants which says
there will be a war that will start off a world war which will begin in South
Carolina and result in the end of all the nations as a true prophecy. The war
happened but it did not lead to a world war. The Mormons say it set in motion
events that led to World War 1. But you could say any war did that. What had the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand have to do with the trouble in South
Carolina? Nothing. And World War 1 did not bring down all the nations or even
involve all the nations. Some Mormons say that the war of South Carolina was not
the one that happened since Smith prophesied but is still to happen. But
probability says that Smith meant the past one for he said it was to come to
pass shortly and there was much speculation in his day that it would happen.
Smith knew that riots and battles were inevitable even small-scale ones. Even if
there had been no big war Smith could still have pointed to the skirmishes as
war for that is what they are. The fact that he blurted out such a twistable
prediction proves he was a fraud and not a prophet.

The Mormon Church says that when Smith was in Liberty Jail it was extremely
likely that he would be put to death but he prophesied that this wouldn’t
happen. God told him he would triumph over his foes. The Church says this came
true. There is not enough in the prophecy to demand a supernatural fulfilment.
Had Smith died then by execution the Church would have burnt the prophecy or
even started a resurrection report.

The Mormon Church says a remarkable prophecy about Stephen A Douglas made by
Smith has been wonderfully fulfilled. But all Smith said to the man was that the
government of America will be destroyed if they do not start respecting the
Saints and that Douglas would try to become President and if he ever turned
against God he would strike him. But what government and when? One in forty
years time? In those days a collapsed government had to happen sometime soon.
But the government was certainly never destroyed despite its troubles. And Smith
only said Douglas would try to become President not that he would or wouldn’t.
What counts as trying: asking for supporters maybe? And had Douglas succeeded
and led a charmed life and then died, the Mormons would be still be saying God
struck him in death – all men have to die so that is not impressive. Or they
could say that he couldn’t get out of persecuting the Mormons and so was not
accountable before God which was why he escaped the punishment Smith said would
befall him if he persecuted. The way Smith worded his prophecy actually proves
that he was not a prophet but a shrewd operator.

The Word of Wisdom, Section 89, of the Doctrine and Covenants, forbids tea and
coffee, tobacco and alcohol to Mormons. The Mormon Church says this proves that
God told Smith that tobacco was bad before it was discovered to be unhealthy in
the twentieth century. But he could have allowed tea within reason. This shows
that he was only guessing that these things were immoral and harmful. Smith knew
that tobacco was harmful to the chest and that was known long before its
carcinogenic properties was known.

The prophecies that there would be branches of the Church in New York and Boston
are unimpressive for Smith had more success with Mormonism than he thought
possible so he knew it had to expand into these places someday. Had he been a
prophet he would have been able to give the decade when the branches would be
organised.

Smith allegedly told Dan Jones the night before the assassination at Carthage
Jail that he would survive the impending unexpected attack and serve the Church
in Wales. This came true. But we have only Dan Jones’ word for this. It is one
of the lies that are always told about people after they die. Was Dan like a
fortune tellers client who remembers the “hits” and forgets the predictions that
are wrong or ridiculous?

Smith said that God made Sidney Rigdon a spokesman for him to the Mormon people
(Doctrine and Covenants 100:9-11). The Church says Smith foreknew how Rigdon
would lead the Church under him. But how a man like Smith who has the power to
fulfil the prophecy by giving Rigdon a high office could have the right to make
such a prophecy is not explained. It would be a sure sign that he was claiming
supernatural significance for what was not supernatural. So what else was he
doing? However, the assertion does not claim to be making a prediction. Had
Rigdon not become a leading Mormon the Church would be teaching just that.

The Mormon Church says that Smith knew Newel K Whitney by name without having
seeing him before in 1831. This is supposed to show that Smith really was a
Prophet. But there are other explanations.

How to Answer a Mormon by Robert A Morey is an excellent refutation of the
Mormon claim that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God. It copies the
prophecies so you can read them for yourself and make your own choice.

Internet Infidels has a good page called Joseph Smith as a Prophet by Richard
Packham. It shows that Smith was a false prophet and refutes the Mormon boast
that Smith made fulfilled prophecies.

Read Section 114. David Patten died before he could accomplish this mission.

The Mormon excuse is that God knew he would die but was not predicting his
future but telling him what to do if he lived. This is a lame answer beyond
belief. It overlooks the fact that it could be a prophecy, it could be a command
and it could even be both. Two out of three chances then that it was predictive.

God rarely speaks and would not waste his words on a command that won't be
fulfilled.

Prophecy or command the section has God saying Patten will be alive to do the
mission. Why else would it tell him to take care of his business affairs and
sell things so that he will have the money to do the mission? God says it is
wisdom that David do this.

The detail in the command shows that if it was not merely a prophecy it was a
command-prophecy. If it were a command God would not say, "It is wisdom in my
servant David W Patten that he settle up all his business as soon as he possibly
can, and make a disposition of his merchandise, that he may perform a mission
unto me next spring, in company with others, even twelve including himself, to
testify of my name and bear glad tidings unto all the world." He would say, "It
is wisdom in my servant David W Patten that he settle up all his business and
make a disposition of his merchandise, that he may perform a mission unto me to
testify of my name and bear glad tidings unto all the world". The stuff about
the mission in the spring, David joining with eleven others means that God sees
the need for this to be done meaning he has seen the need in the future. He
knows what circumstances are needed.

God says that those who deny his name will be replaced and links this with
Patten. So Patten will be accepted by God to replace those who have gone astray.
He is predicting then that Patten will be alive "to bear glad tidings unto all
the world".

Conclusion

Joseph Smith was a false prophet. I would add that Joseph Smith revised
the Bible and kept its vicious parts - ie the commands from God telling his
corrupt and evil people to accuse adulteresses and stone them to death! He
claimed to be able to fix it under divine inspiration for the apostate Christian
Church had altered it and deliberately mistranslated it.

BOOKS CONSULTED

A GATHERING OF SAINTS, Robert Lindsay, Corgi, London, 1990

A MARVELLOUS WORK AND A WONDER, LeGrand Richards, Deseret Books, Utah, 1976

AN ADDRESS TO ALL BELIEVERS IN CHRIST, David Whitmer, Board of Publications of
The Church of Christ with the Elijah Message, Lacy Road, Independence, Missouri

THE BOOK OF MORMON WITNESSES
www.exmormon.org/file9.htm
Excellent refutation of the claims of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon

JOSEPH SMITH AS A PROPHET by Richard Packham
www.exmormon.org/prophet.htm
Refutes the Mormon claim that Smith was a real prophet of God. The Mormons
accept the validity of Ezekiel 12:21-28 which says that if a prophecy is too
long in being fulfilled then it is a false prophecy. A prophecy will come true
by chance given long enough. Smith made many prophecies that have not come true
yet so he was a false prophet. By the same criteria, the Old Testament prophets
failed and the Christian claim that they predicted Jesus and his life by the
power of God is false for even if the prophecies did come true it was not God
that was behind it. Doctrine and Covenants 1:37 pledges that every word
prophesised by Smith will come true for God has spoken. On January 4th 1833
Smith predicted by the authority of Jesus that there were people then living who
would see the twelve tribes of Israel gathered to Missouri. This never happened.
Slaves did not rise up and cause a war as he predicted in Doctrine and Covenants
87. God told Smith that the communism practiced by his Church would never be
done away and would still be done when he comes again (Doctrine and Covenants
104). The Mormon Church dropped the communism causing minor schisms on the basis
that the Church could no longer be the true Church for doing that.

JERALD AND SANDRA TANNER’S DISTORTED VIEW OF MORMONISM: A RESPONSE TO MORMONISM,
SHADOW OR REALITY?
www.xmission.com/~country/reason/ldshist1.htm This page shows plainly the harm
that the Christian Church in general is doing with its rotten Bible for the evil
commanded by God in the Bible is defended on the basis that it has a purpose
known to God and this is used to justify the terrible doctrines such as polygamy
that the Mormons used to live out. The page does what all apologists for
religion does, ignore the major problems and nitpicks on rather minor errors in
the hope of showing the critics to be not worth listening to. For example, the
Tanners believed that Joseph Smith copied his father’s story of a dream he had
in 1811 into the Book of Mormon as the dream of Lehi because Joseph’s mother
Lucy wrote about the dream in 1845 and the two were identical in all serious
points. The page says that Lucy Smith simply filled in her memory of her
husband’s dream subconsciously from the Book of Mormon. But she had family and
friends to help her remember. The page says that since the Book of Mormon was
written first and she was writing 15 years later it is wrong to say that the
author of the Book of Mormon was the one doing the copying. But how do you know?
It is still most probable that the Tanners are right. If it is not then we still
have no reason to take one side or the other. Anyway, what about the more
serious objections to the Book of Mormon that the Tanners made? He’s nitpicking.
The page says that since the Temple ceremony of the Mormons has many elements in
it like Masonry that Smith did not borrow from Masonry for Masonry might have
been partly divinely inspired. This denies Occam’s Razor, stick to the simplest
explanation and that is that Smith stole Masonic rites. With the logic of the
page you could say the book or song you got caught plagiarising was not copied
on purpose but somebody must have telepathically put the words of an existing
song and the music into your unsuspecting mind.

BY HIS OWN HAND ON PAPYRUS, Charles Larson
At Mormons in Transition Website www.irr.org

MORE PROBLEMS WITH THE FIRST VISION, ANSWERING DR CLANDESTINE, Jerald and Sandra
Tanner
www.xmission.com/~country/reason/clndst10.htm

BOOK OF MORMON QUESTIONS
www.lds-mormon.com/bookofmormonquestions.shtml

MORMONISM UNVAILED: MORE EVIDENCE THAT IT IS TRUE. Christian Apologetics and
Research Ministry
www.carm.org/lds/unveiled_defended.htm

THE ABRIDGEMENT OF D&C 137
www.saintsalive./com/mormonism/falseprophetjs/htm

THE BOOK OF MORMON: ONE TOO MANY M’S Stephen Van Eck
www.infidels.org/library/modern/stephen_eck/toomany.html

EGYPTIAN CHARACTERS
www.mormonstudies.com/seer2.htm
This shows that when Smith translated the book of Abraham he invented
hieroglyphics where there was a piece missing from the papyri. The characters
Smith added make no sense to translators. Yet he translated these imaginary
hieroglyphics! His mother and close associate David Whitmer spoke of Joseph
copying characters of the gold plates of the Book of Mormon before he translated
and that like the Book of Abraham Smith often produced two lines in the
manuscript with the translation of a single character which shows that the whole
Book of Mormon thing was a hoax.

MORMON FARMS
www.xmission.com~country/reason/farms_1.htm
by Jerald and Sandra Tanner. Gathers evidence that indicates that it was
possible that Smith was insane and had manic depression.

COMMENTS ON THE BOOK OF MORMON WITNESSES: A RESPONSE TO JERALD AND SANDRA TANNER
www.mormons.org/response/bom/witnesses_Roper.htm
A ridiculous rebuttal that has been taken into account for this book and
refuted.

FACTS ON THE BOOK OF MORMON WITNESSES, PART 1

www.irr.org/mit/bomwit1.html
Excellent refutation of the reliability of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon